The present invention relates to a motor vehicle seat with an on-board safety belt and to an arrangement of this seat in the passenger compartment of the vehicle.
There is already known in the state of the art a motor vehicle seat of the type comprising an on-board safety belt with three anchoring points borne by the seat. This type of seat includes a belt having two straps--a diagonal strap and a lap strap--connected to the anchoring points. The diagonal strap has an upper end and a lower end which is common to the lap strap. The upper end and the lower end of the diagonal strap are positioned, when the belt is being used by an occupant of the seat, on opposite sides--left and right--of the seat, so that the diagonal strap extends obliquely from top to bottom of the seat.
FR-A-2, 699,973 (FR-A-92 15 857) describes a seat of this type which can be fastened removably to the floor of the passenger compartment of a motor vehicle of the single-volume kind.
For various reasons associated particularly with behaviour of the safety belt in the event of an impact, the end which is common to both the diagonal and lap straps is placed on the innermost side of the seat. Thus, for a left-hand seat, the end which is common to the diagonal and lap straps is placed on the right-hand side of the seat, and for a right-hand seat, this common end is placed on the left-hand side of the seat.
This chiral symmetry between the anchoring points of two seats--a left-hand seat and a right-hand seat--does not allow these two seats to be swapped over in the passenger compartment.
The constructors of seats with on-board safety belts therefore have to have separate production lines, one for the left-hand seat and one for the right-hand seat. This increases the overall costs of the vehicle.